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So he was billed as an attraction. It was his first surreptitious tasteof fame on the Atlantic coast, and not without its delight. The storyoften told of his being introduced by Ned House, of the Tribune, as aminister, though often repeated by Mark Twain himself, was in the natureof a joke, and mainly apocryphal. Clemens was a good deal in House'scompany at the time, for he had made an arrangement to contributeoccasional letters to the Tribune, and House no doubt introduced himjokingly as one of the Quaker City ministers.

LVIII

A NEW BOOK AND A LECTURE

Webb, meantime, had pushed the Frog book along. The proofs had been readand the volume was about ready for issue. Clemens wrote to his motherApril 15th:

My book will probably be in the bookseller's hands in about two weeks. After that I shall lecture. Since I have been gone, the boys have gotten up a "call" on me signed by two hundred Californians.

The lecture plan was the idea of Frank Fuller, who as acting Governor ofUtah had known Mark Twain on the Comstock, and prophesied favorably ofhis future career. Clemens had hunted up Fuller on landing in New Yorkin January, and Fuller had encouraged the lecture then; but Clemens wasdoubtful.

"I have no reputation with the general public here," he said. "Wecouldn't get a baker's dozen to hear me."

But Fuller was a sanguine person, with an energy and enthusiasm that wereinfectious. He insisted that the idea was sound. It would solidify MarkTwain's reputation on the Atlantic coast, he declared, insisting that thelargest house in New York, Cooper Union, should be taken. Clemens hadpartially consented, and Fuller had arranged with all the Pacific slopepeople who had come East, headed by ex-Governor James W. Nye (by thistime Senator at Washington), to sign a call for the "Inimitable MarkTwain" to appear before a New York audience. Fuller made Nye agree to bethere and introduce the lecturer, and he was burningly busy and happy inthe prospect.

But Mark Twain was not happy. He looked at that spacious hall andimagined the little crowd of faithful Californian stragglers that mightgather in to hear him, and the ridicule of the papers next day. Hebegged Fuller to take a smaller hall, the smallest he could get. Butonly the biggest hall in New York would satisfy Fuller. He would havetaken a larger one if he could have found it. The lecture was announcedfor May 6th. Its subject was "Kanakadom, or the Sandwich Islands"--tickets fifty cents. Fuller timed it to follow a few days after Webb'sbook should appear, so that one event might help the other.

Mark Twain's first book, 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of CalaveyasCounty, and Other Sketches', was scheduled for May 1st, and did, in fact,appear on that date; but to the author it was no longer an importantevent. Jim Smiley's frog as standard-bearer of his literary processionwas not an interesting object, so far as he was concerned--not with thatvast, empty hall in the background and the insane undertaking of tryingto fill it. The San Francisco venture had been as nothing compared withthis. Fuller was working night and day with abounding joy, while thesubject of his labor felt as if he were on the brink of a fearfulprecipice, preparing to try a pair of wings without first learning tofly. At one instant he was cold with fright, the next glowing with aninfection of Fuller's faith. He devised a hundred schemes for the saleof seats. Once he came rushing to Fuller, saying:

"Send a lot of tickets down to the Chickering Piano Company. I havepromised to put on my programme, 'The piano used at this entertainment ismanufactured by Chickering."'

"But you don't want a piano, Mark," said Fuller, "do you?"

"No, of course not; but they will distribute the tickets for the sake ofthe advertisement, whether we have the piano or not."

Fuller got out a lot of handbills and hung bunches of them in the stages,omnibuses, and horse-cars. Clemens at first haunted these vehicles tosee if anybody noticed the bills. The little dangling bunches seemeduntouched. Finally two men came in; one of them pulled off a bill andglanced at it. His friend asked:

"Who's Mark Twain?"

"God knows; I don't!"

The lecturer could not ride any more. He was desperate.

"Fuller," he groaned, "there isn't a sign--a ripple of interest."

Fuller assured him that everything was working all right "workingunderneath," Fuller said--but the lecturer was hopeless. He reported hisimpressions to the folks at home:

Everything looks shady, at least, if not dark; I have a good agent; but now, after we have hired the Cooper Institute, and gone to an expense in one way or another of $500, it comes out that I have got to play against Speaker Colfax at Irving Hall, Ristori, and also the double troop of Japanese jugglers, the latter opening at the great Academy of Music--and with all this against me I have taken the largest house in New York and cannot back water.

He might have added that there were other rival entertainments: "TheFlying Scud" was at Wallack's, the "Black Crook" was at Niblo's, JohnBrougham at the Olympic; and there were at least a dozen lesserattractions. New York was not the inexhaustible city in those days;these things could gather in the public to the last man. When the daydrew near, and only a few tickets had been sold, Clemens was desperate.

"Fuller," he said, "there'll be nobody in the Cooper Union that night butyou and me. I am on the verge of suicide. I would commit suicide if Ihad the pluck and the outfit. You must paper the house, Fuller. Youmust send out a flood of complementaries."

"Very well," said Fuller; "what we want this time is reputation anyway--money is secondary. I'll put you before the choicest, most intelligentaudience that ever was gathered in New York City. I will bring in theschool-instructors--the finest body of men and women in the world."

Fuller immediately sent out a deluge of complimentary tickets, invitingthe school-teachers of New York and Brooklyn, and all the adjacentcountry, to come free and hear Mark Twain's great lecture on Kanakadom.This was within forty-eight hours of the time he was to appear.

Senator Nye was to have joined Clemens and Fuller at the Westminster,where Clemens was stopping, and they waited for him there with acarriage, fuming and swearing, until it was evident that he was notcoming. At last Clemens said:

"Fuller, you've got to introduce me."

"No," suggested Fuller; "I've got a better scheme than that. You get upand begin by bemeaning Nye for not being there. That will be betteranyway."

Clemens said:

"Well, Fuller, I can do that. I feel that way. I'll try to think upsomething fresh and happy to say about that horse-thief."

They drove to Cooper Union with trepidation. Suppose, after all, theschool-teachers had declined to come? They went half an hour before thelecture was to begin. Forty years later Mark Twain said:

"I couldn't keep away. I wanted to see that vast Mammoth cave and die.But when we got near the building I saw that all the streets were blockedwith people, and that traffic had stopped. I couldn't believe that thesepeople were trying to get into Cooper Institute; but they were, and whenI got to the stage at last the house was jammed full-packed; there wasn'troom enough left for a child.

"I was happy and I was excited beyond expression. I poured the SandwichIslands out on those people, and they laughed and shouted to my entirecontent. For an hour and fifteen minutes I was in paradise."

And Fuller to-day, alive and young, when so many others of that ancienttime and event have vanished, has added:

"When Mark appeared the Californians gave a regular yell of welcome.When that was over he walked to the edge of the platform, lookedcarefully down in the pit, round the edges as if he were hunting forsomething. Then he said: 'There was to have been a piano here, and asenator to introduce me. I don't seem to discover them anywhere. Thepiano was a good one, but we will have to get along with such music as Ican make with your help. As for the senator--Then Mark let himself goand did as he promised about Senator Nye. He said things that made menfrom the Pacific coast, who had known Nye, scream with delight. Afterthat came his lecture. The first sentence captured the audience. Fromthat moment to the end it was either in a roar of laughter or halfbreathless by his beautiful descriptive passages. People were positivelyill for days, laughing at that lecture."

So it was a success: everybody was glad to have been there; the paperswere kind, congratulations numerous.

--[Kind but not extravagant; those were burning political times, and thedoings of mere literary people did not excite the press to the extent ofheadlines. A jam around Cooper Union to-day, followed by such anartistic triumph, would be a news event. On the other hand, SchuylerColfax, then Speaker of the House, was reported to the extent of acolumn, nonpareil. His lecture was of no literary importance, and noecho of it now remains. But those were political, not artistic, days.

Of Mark Twain's lecture the Times notice said:

"Nearly every one present came prepared for considerable provocation forenjoyable laughter, and from the appearance of their mirthful facesleaving the hall at the conclusion of the lecture but few weredisappointed, and it is not too much to say that seldom has so large anaudience been so uniformly pleased as the one that listened to MarkTwain's quaint remarks last evening. The large hall of the Union wasfilled to its utmost capacity by fully two thousand persons, which factspoke well for the reputation of the lecturer and his future success.Mark Twain's style is a quaint one both in manner and method, and throughhis discourse he managed to keep on the right side of the audience, andfrequently convulsed it with hearty laughter.... During a description ofthe topography of the Sandwich Islands the lecturer surprised his hearersby a graphic and eloquent description of the eruption of the greatvolcano, which occurred in 1840, and his language was loudly applauded.

"Judging from the success achieved by the lecturer last evening, heshould repeat his experiment at an early date."]

COOPER INSTITUTE By Invitation of s large number of prominent Californians and Citizens of New York,

MARK TWAIN

WILL DELIVER A SERIO-HUMEROUS LECTURE CONERNING

KANAKDOM OR THE SANDWICH ISLANDS,

COOPER INSTITUTE, On Monday Evening, May 6,1867.

TICKETS FIFTY GENTS. For Sale at Chickering and Sons, 852 Broadway, and at the Principal Hotel

Doors open at 7 o'clock. The Wisdom will begin to flow at 8.

Mark Twain always felt grateful to the school-teachers for that night.Many years later, when they wanted him to read to them in Steinway Hall,he gladly gave his services without charge.

Nor was the lecture a complete financial failure. In spite of the floodof complementaries, there was a cash return of some three hundred dollarsfrom the sale of tickets--a substantial aid in defraying the expenseswhich Fuller assumed and insisted on making good on his own account.That was Fuller's regal way; his return lay in the joy of the game, andin the winning of the larger stake for a friend.

"Mark," he said, "it is all right. The fortune didn't come, but it will.The fame has arrived; with this lecture and your book just out you aregoing to be the most talked-of man in the country. Your letters for theAlta and the Tribune will get the widest reception of any letters oftravel ever written."

LIX

THE FIRST BOOK

With the shadow of the Cooper Institute so happily dispelled, TheCelebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and his following of OtherSketches, became a matter of more interest. The book was a neat blue-and-gold volume printed by John A. Gray & Green, the old firm for whichthe boy, Sam Clemens, had set type thirteen years before. The title-pagebore Webb's name as publisher, with the American News Company as sellingagents. It further stated that the book was edited by "John Paul," thatis to say by Webb himself. The dedication was in keeping with thegeneral irresponsible character of the venture. It was as follows:

TO JOHN SMITH WHOM I HAVE KNOWN IN DIVERS AND SUNDRY PLACES ABOUT THE WORLD, AND WHOSE MANY AND MANIFOLD VIRTUES DID ALWAYS COMMAND MY ESTEEM, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

It is said that the man to whom a volume is dedicated always buys a copy.If this prove true in the present instance, a princely affluence is aboutto burst upon THE AUTHOR.

The "advertisement" stated that the author had "scaled the heights ofpopularity at a single jump, and won for himself the sobriquet of the'Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope'; furthermore, that he was known tofame as the 'Moralist of the Main,'" and that as such he would be likelyto go down to posterity, adding that it was in his secondary character,as humorist, rather than in his primal one of moralist, that the volumeaimed to present him.--[The advertisement complete, with extracts fromthe book, may be found under Appendix E, at the end of last volume.]

Every little while, during the forty years or more that have elapsedsince then, some one has come forward announcing Mark Twain to be as mucha philosopher as a humorist, as if this were a new discovery. But it wasa discovery chiefly to the person making the announcement. Every one whoever knew Mark Twain at any period of his life made the same discovery.Every one who ever took the trouble to familiarize himself with his workmade it. Those who did not make it have known his work only by hearsayand quotation, or they have read it very casually, or have been verydull. It would be much more of a discovery to find a book in which hehas not been serious--a philosopher, a moralist, and a poet. Even in theJumping Frog sketches, selected particularly for their inconsequence, theunder-vein of reflection and purpose is not lacking. The answer to MoralStatistician--[In "Answers to Correspondents," included now in SketchesNew and Old. An extract from it, and from "A Strange Dream," will befound in Appendix E.]--is fairly alive with human wisdom and righteouswrath. The "Strange Dream," though ending in a joke, is aglow withpoetry. Webb's "advertisement" was playfully written, but it wasearnestly intended, and he writes Mark Twain down a moralist--not as adiscovery, but as a matter of course. The discoveries came along later,when the author's fame as a humorist had dazzled the nations.

It is as well to say it here as anywhere, perhaps, that one reason whyMark Twain found it difficult to be accepted seriously was the fact thathis personality was in itself so essentially humorous. His physiognomy,his manner of speech, this movement, his mental attitude toward events--all these were distinctly diverting. When we add to this that his mediumof expression was nearly always full of the quaint phrasing and thosesurprising appositions which we recognize as amusing, it is not soastonishing that his deeper, wiser, more serious purpose should beoverlooked. On the whole these unabated discoverers serve a purpose, ifonly to make the rest of their species look somewhat deeper than thecomic phrase.

The little blue-and-gold volume which presented the Frog story andtwenty-six other sketches in covers is chiefly important to-day as beingMark Twain's first book. The selections in it were made for a publicthat had been too busy with a great war to learn discrimination, and mostof them have properly found oblivion. Fewer than a dozen of them wereincluded in his collected Sketches issued eight years later, and someeven of those might have been spared; also some that were added, for thatmatter; but detailed literary criticism is not the province of this work.The reader may investigate and judge for himself.

Clemens was pleased with the appearance of his book. To Bret Harte hewrote:

The book is out and it is handsome. It is full of damnable errors ofgrammar and deadly inconsistencies of spelling in the Frog sketch,because I was away and did not read proofs; but be a friend and saynothing about these things. When my hurry is over, I will send you acopy to pisen the children with.

That he had no exaggerated opinion of the book's contents or prospects wemay gather from his letter home:

As for the Frog book, I don't believe it will ever pay anything worth acent. I published it simply to advertise myself, and not with the hopeof making anything out of it.

He had grown more lenient in his opinion of the merits of the Frog storyitself since it had made friends in high places, especially since JamesRussell Lowell had pronounced it "the finest piece of humorous writingyet produced in America"; but compared with his lecture triumph, and hisprospective journey to foreign seas, his book venture, at best, claimedno more than a casual regard. A Sandwich Island book (he had collectedhis Union letters with the idea of a volume) he gave up altogether afterone unsuccessful offer of it to Dick & Fitzgerald.

Frank Fuller's statement, that the fame had arrived, had in it somemeasure of truth. Lecture propositions came from various directions.Thomas Nast, then in the early day of his great popularity, proposed ajoint tour, in which Clemens would lecture, while he, Nast, illustratedthe remarks with lightning caricatures. But the time was too short; theQuaker City would sail on the 8th of June, and in the mean time the Altacorrespondent was far behind with his New York letters. On May 29th hewrote:

I am 18 Alta letters behind, and I must catch up or bust. I have refusedall invitations to lecture. Don't know how my book is coming on.

He worked like a slave for a week or so, almost night and day, to cleanup matters before his departure. Then came days of idleness andreaction-days of waiting, during which his natural restlessness and theold-time regret for things done and undone, beset him.

My passage is paid, and if the ship sails I sail on her; but I make no calculations, have bought no cigars, no sea-going clothing--have made no preparations whatever--shall not pack my trunk till the morning we sail.

All I do know or feel is that I am wild with impatience to move-- move--move! Curse the endless delays! They always kill me--they make me neglect every duty, and then I have a conscience that tears me like a wild beast. I wish I never had to stop anywhere a month. I do more mean things the moment I get a chance to fold my hands and sit down than ever I get forgiveness for.

Yes, we are to meet at Mr. Beach's next Thursday night, and I suppose we shall have to be gotten up regardless of expense, in swallow-tails, white kids and everything 'en regle'.

I am resigned to Rev. Mr. Hutchinson's or anybody else's supervision. I don't mind it. I am fixed. I have got a splendid, immoral, tobacco-smoking, wine-drinking, godless roommate who is as good and true and right-minded a man as ever lived--a man whose blameless conduct and example will always be an eloquent sermon to all who shall come within their influence. But send on the professional preachers--there are none I like better to converse with; if they're not narrowminded and bigoted they make good companions.

The "splendid immoral room-mate" was Dan Slote--"Dan," of The Innocents,a lovable character--all as set down. Samuel Clemens wrote one moreletter to his mother and sister--a conscience-stricken, pessimisticletter of good-by written the night before sailing. Referring to theAlta letters he says:

I think they are the stupidest letters ever written from New York. Corresponding has been a perfect drag ever since I got to the States. If it continues abroad, I don't know what the Tribune and Alta folk will think.

He remembers Orion, who had been officially eliminated when Nevada hadreceived statehood.

I often wonder if his law business is going satisfactorily. I wish I had gone to Washington in the winter instead of going West. I could have gouged an office out of Bill Stewart for him, and that would have atoned for the loss of my home visit. But I am so worthless that it seems to me I never do anything or accomplish anything that lingers in my mind as a pleasant memory. My mind is stored full of unworthy conduct toward Orion and toward you all, and an accusing conscience gives me peace only in excitement and restless moving from place to place. If I could only say I had done one thing for any of you that entitled me to your good opinions (I say nothing of your love, for I am sure of that, no matter how unworthy of it I may make myself--from Orion down, you have always given me that; all the days of my life, when God Almighty knows I have seldom deserved it), I believe I could go home and stay there-- and I know I would care little for the world's praise or blame. There is no satisfaction in the world's praise anyhow, and it has no worth to me save in the way of business. I tried to gather up its compliments to send you, but the work was distasteful and I dropped it.

You observe that under a cheerful exterior I have got a spirit that is angry with me and gives me freely its contempt. I can get away from that at sea, and be tranquil and satisfied; and so, with my parting love and benediction for Orion and all of you, I say good-by and God bless you all-and welcome the wind that wafts a weary soul to the sunny lands of the Mediterranean!

Yrs. forever, SAM

LX

THE INNOCENTS AT SEA

HOLY LAND PLEASURE EXCURSION

Steamer: Quaker City.

Captain C. C. Duncan.

Left New York at 2 P.m., June 8, 1867.

Rough weather--anchored within the harbor to lay all night.

That first note recorded an event momentous in Mark Twain's career--anevent of supreme importance; if we concede that any link in a chainregardless of size is of more importance than any other link.Undoubtedly it remains the most conspicuous event, as the world views itnow, in retrospect.

The note further heads a new chapter of history in sea-voyaging. No suchthing as the sailing of an ocean steamship with a pleasure-party on along transatlantic cruise had ever occurred before. A similar projecthad been undertaken the previous year, but owing to a cholera scare inthe East it had been abandoned. Now the dream had become a fact--astupendous fact when we consider it. Such an important beginning as thatnow would in all likelihood furnish the chief news story of the day.

But they had different ideas of news in those days. There were noheadlines announcing the departure of the Quaker City--only the barestmention of the ship's sailing, though a prominent position was given toan account of a senatorial excursion-party which set out that samemorning over the Union Pacific Railway, then under construction. Everyname in that political party was set dawn, and not one of them exceptGeneral Hancock will ever be heard of again. The New York Times,however, had some one on its editorial staff who thought it worth whileto comment a little on the history-making Quaker City excursion. Thewriter was pleasantly complimentary to officers and passengers. Hereferred to Moses S. Beach, of the Sun, who was taking with him type andpress, whereby he would "skilfully utilize the brains of the company fortheir mutual edification." Mr. Beecher and General Sherman would findtalent enough aboard to make the hours go pleasantly (evidently thewriter had not interested himself sufficiently to know that thesegentlemen were not along), and the paragraph closed by prophesying othersuch excursions, and wishing the travelers "good speed, a happy voyage,and a safe return."

That was handsome, especially for those days; only now, some fine day,when an airship shall start with a band of happy argonauts to land beyondthe sunrise for the first time in history, we shall feature it andemblazon it with pictures in the Sunday papers, and weeklies, and in themagazines.--[The Quaker City idea was so unheard-of that in some of theforeign ports visited, the officials could not believe that the vesselwas simply a pleasure-craft, and were suspicious of some dark, ulteriorpurpose.]

That Henry Ward Beecher and General Sherman had concluded not to go was aheavy disappointment at first; but it proved only a temporary disaster.The inevitable amalgamation of all ship companies took place. The sixty-seven travelers fell into congenial groups, or they mingled and devisedamusements, and gossiped and became a big family, as happy and as freefrom contention as families of that size are likely to be.

The Quaker City was a good enough ship and sizable for her time. She wasregistered eighteen hundred tons--about one-tenth the size ofMediterranean excursion-steamers today--and when conditions werefavorable she could make ten knots an hour under steam--or, at least, shecould do it with the help of her auxiliary sails. Altogether she was acozy, satisfactory ship, and they were a fortunate company who had herall to themselves and went out on her on that long-ago ocean gipsying.She has grown since then, even to the proportions of the Mayflower. Itwas necessary for her to grow to hold all of those who in later timesclaimed to have sailed in her on that voyage with Mark Twain.--[TheQuaker City passenger list will be found under Appendix F, at the end oflast volume.]

They were not all ministers and deacons aboard the Quaker City. Clemensfound other congenial spirits be sides his room-mate Dan Slote--amongthem the ship's surgeon, Dr. A. Reeve Jackson (the guide-destroying"Doctor" of The Innocents); Jack Van Nostrand, of New Jersey ("Jack");Julius Moulton, of St. Louis ("Moult"), and other care-free fellows, thesmoking-room crowd which is likely to make comradeship its chiefwatchword. There were companionable people in the cabin crowd also--fine, intelligent men and women, especially one of the latter, a middle-aged, intellectual, motherly soul--Mrs. A. W. Fairbanks, of Cleveland,Ohio. Mrs. Fairbanks--herself a newspaper correspondent for herhusband's paper, the Cleveland Herald had a large influence on thecharacter and general tone of those Quaker City letters which establishedMark Twain's larger fame. She was an able writer herself; her judgmentwas thoughtful, refined, unbiased--altogether of a superior sort. Sheunderstood Samuel Clemens, counseled him, encouraged him to read hisletters aloud to her, became in reality "Mother Fairbanks," as theytermed her, to him and to others of that ship who needed her kindlyoffices.

In one of his home letters, later, he said of her:

She was the most refined, intelligent, cultivated lady in the ship, and altogether the kindest and best. She sewed my buttons on, kept my clothing in presentable trim, fed me on Egyptian jam (when I behaved), lectured me awfully on the quarter-deck on moonlit promenading evenings, and cured me of several bad habits. I am under lasting obligations to her. She looks young because she is so good, but she has a grown son and daughter at home.

In one of the early letters which Mrs. Fairbanks wrote to her paper sheis scarcely less complimentary to him, even if in a different way.

We have D.D.'s and M.D.'s--we have men of wisdom and men of wit. There is one table from which is sure to come a peal of laughter, and all eyes are turned toward Mark Twain, whose face is, perfectly mirth-provoking. Sitting lazily at the table, scarcely genteel in his appearance, there is something, I know not what, that interests and attracts. I saw to-day at dinner venerable divines and sage- looking men convulsed with laughter at his drolleries and quaint, odd manners.

It requires only a few days on shipboard for acquaintances to form, andpresently a little afternoon group was gathering to hear Mark Twain readhis letters. Mrs. Fairbanks was there, of course, also Mr. and Mrs. S.L. Severance, likewise of Cleveland, and Moses S. Beach, of the Sun, withhis daughter Emma, a girl of seventeen. Dan Slote was likely to bethere, too, and Jack, and the Doctor, and Charles J. Langdon, of Elmira,New York, a boy of eighteen, who had conceived a deep admiration for thebrilliant writer. They were fortunate ones who first gathered to hearthose daring, wonderful letters.

But the benefit was a mutual one. He furnished a priceless entertainment,and he derived something equally priceless in return--the test ofimmediate audience and the boon of criticism. Mrs. Fairbanks especiallywas frankly sincere. Mr. Severance wrote afterward:

One afternoon I saw him tearing up a bunch of the soft, white paper- copy paper, I guess the newspapers call it-on which he had written something, and throwing the fragments into the Mediterranean. I inquired of him why he cast away the fruits of his labors in that manner.

"Well," he drawled, "Mrs. Fairbanks thinks it oughtn't to be printed,and, like as not, she is right."

And Emma Beach (Mrs. Abbott Thayer) remembers hearing him say:

"Well, Mrs. Fairbanks has just destroyed another four hours' work forme."

Sometimes he played chess with Emma Beach, who thought him a great herobecause, once when a crowd of men were tormenting a young lad, apassenger, Mark Twain took the boy's part and made them desist.

"I am sure I was right, too," she declares; "heroism came natural tohim."

Mr. Severance recalls another incident which, as he says, was trivialenough, but not easy to forget:

We were having a little celebration over the birthday anniversary of Mrs.Duncan, wife of our captain. Mark Twain got up and made a little speech,in which he said Mrs. Duncan was really older than Methuselah because sheknew a lot of things that Methuselah never heard of. Then he mentioned anumber of more or less modern inventions, and wound up by saying, "Whatdid Methuselah know about a barbed-wire fence?"

Except Following the Equator, The Innocents Abroad comes nearer to beinghistory than any other of Mark Twain's travel-books. The notes for itwere made on the spot, and there was plenty of fact, plenty of fresh, newexperience, plenty of incident to set down. His idea of descriptivetravel in those days was to tell the story as it happened; also, perhaps,he had not then acquired the courage of his inventions. We may believethat the adventures with Jack, Dan, and the Doctor are elaborated hereand there; but even those happened substantially as recorded. There islittle to add, then, to the story of that halcyon trip, and not much toelucidate.

The old note-books give a light here and there that is interesting. Itis curious to be looking through them now, trying to realize that thesepenciled memoranda were the fresh, first impressions that would presentlygrow into the world's most delightful book of travel; that they were setdown in the very midst of that care-free little company that frolickedthrough Italy, climbed wearily the arid Syrian hills. They are all deadnow; but to us they are as alive and young to-day as when they followedthe footprints of the Son of Man through Palestine, and stood at lastbefore the Sphinx, impressed and awed by its "five thousand slow-revolving years."

Some of the items consist of no more than a few terse, suggestive words--serious, humorous, sometimes profane. Others are statistical,descriptive, elaborated. Also there are drawings--"not copied," he marksthem, with a pride not always justified by the result. The earlier notesare mainly comments on the "pilgrims," the freak pilgrims: "the Frenchy-looking woman who owns a dog and keeps up an interminable biography ofhim to the passengers"; the "long-legged, simple, wide-mouthed, horse-laughing young fellow who once made a sea voyage to Fortress Monroe, andquotes eternally from his experiences"; also, there is reference toanother young man, "good, accommodating, pleasant but fearfully green."This young person would become the "Interrogation Point," in due time,and have his picture on page 71 (old edition), while opposite him, onpage 70, would appear the "oracle," identified as one Doctor Andrews, who(the note-book says) had the habit of "smelling in guide-books forknowledge and then trying to play it for old information that has beenfestering in his brain." Sometimes there are abstract notes such as:

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing that no one hadever said it before.

Of the "character" notes, the most important and elaborated is that whichpresents the "Poet Lariat." This is the entry, somewhat epitomized:

BLOODGOOD H. CUTTER

He is fifty years old, and small of his age. He dresses in homespun, and is a simple-minded, honest, old-fashioned farmer, with a strange proclivity for writing rhymes. He writes them on all possible subjects, and gets them printed on slips of paper, with his portrait at the head. These he will give to any man who comes along, whether he has anything against him or not . . . .

Dan said:

"It must be a great happiness to you to sit down at the close of day and put its events all down in rhymes and poetry, like Byron and Shakespeare and those fellows."

"Oh yes, it is--it is--Why, many's the time I've had to get up in the night when it comes on me:

Whether we're on the sea or the land We've all got to go at the word of command--

"Hey! how's that?"

A curious character was Cutter--a Long Island farmer with the obsessionof rhyme. In his old age, in an interview, he said:

"Mark was generally writing and he was glum. He would write what we weredoing, and I would write poetry, and Mark would say:

"'For Heaven's sake, Cutter, keep your poems to yourself.'

"Yes, Mark was pretty glum, and he was generally writing."

Poor old Poet Lariat--dead now with so many others of that happy crew.We may believe that Mark learned to be "glum" when he saw the Lariatapproaching with his sheaf of rhymes. We may believe, too, that he was"generally writing." He contributed fifty-three letters to the Altaduring that five months and six to the Tribune. They would average abouttwo columns nonpareil each, which is to say four thousand words, orsomething like two hundred and fifty thousand words in all. To turn outan average of fifteen hundred words a day, with continuous sight-seeingbesides, one must be generally writing during any odd intervals; thosewho are wont to regard Mark Twain as lazy may consider these statistics.That he detested manual labor is true enough, but at the work for whichhe was fitted and intended it may be set down here upon authority (anddespite his own frequent assertions to the contrary) that to his lastyear he was the most industrious of men.

LXI

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD

It was Dan, Jack, and the Doctor who with Mark Twain wandered downthrough Italy and left moral footprints that remain to this day. TheItalian guides are wary about showing pieces of the True Cross, fragmentsof the Crown of Thorns, and the bones of saints since then. They showthem, it is true, but with a smile; the name of Mark Twain is a touch-stone to test their statements. Not a guide in Italy but has heard thetale of that iconoclastic crew, and of the book which turned theirmarvels into myths, their relics into bywords.

It was Doctor Jackson, Colonel Denny, Doctor Birch, and Samuel Clemenswho evaded the quarantine and made the perilous night trip to Athens andlooked upon the Parthenon and the sleeping city by moonlight. It is allset down in the notes, and the account varies little from that given inthe book; only he does not tell us that Captain Duncan and thequartermaster, Pratt, connived at the escapade, or how the latter watchedthe shore in anxious suspense until he heard the whistle which was theirsignal to be taken aboard. It would have meant six months' imprisonmentif they had been captured, for there was no discretion in the Greek law.

It was T. D. Crocker, A. N. Sanford, Col. Peter Kinney, and WilliamGibson who were delegated to draft the address to the Emperor of Russiaat Yalta, with Samuel L. Clemens as chairman of that committee. Thechairman wrote the address, the opening sentence of which he grew soweary of hearing:

We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation, and unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial state.

The address is all set down in the notes, and there also exists the firstrough draft, with the emendations in his own hand. He deplores the timeit required:

That job is over. Writing addresses to emperors is not my strong suit. However, if it is not as good as it might be it doesn't signify--the other committeemen ought to have helped me write it; they had nothing to do, and I had my hands full. But for bothering with this I would have caught up entirely with my New York Tribune correspondence and nearly up with the San Francisco.

They wanted him also to read the address to the Emperor, but he pointedout that the American consul was the proper person for that office. Hetells how the address was presented:

August 26th. The Imperial carriages were in waiting at eleven, and attwelve we were at the palace....

The Consul for Odessa read the address and the Czar said frequently,"Good--very good; indeed"--and at the close, "I am very, very grateful."

It was not improper for him to set down all this, and much more, in hisown note-book--not then for publication. It was in fact a very properrecord--for today.

One incident of the imperial audience Mark Twain omitted from his book,perhaps because the humor of it had not yet become sufficiently evident."The humorous perception of a thing is a pretty slow growth sometimes,"he once remarked. It was about seventeen years before he could laughenjoyably at a slight mistake he made at the Emperor's reception. He setdown a memorandum of it, then, for fear it might be lost:

There were a number of great dignitaries of the Empire there, and although, as a general thing, they were dressed in citizen's clothing, I observed that the most of them wore a very small piece of ribbon in the lapels of their coats. That little touch of color struck my fancy, and it seemed to me a good idea to add it to my own attractions; not imagining that it had any special significance. So I stepped aside, hunted up a bit of red ribbon, and ornamented my lapel with it. Presently, Count Festetics, the Grand Master of ceremonies, and the only man there who was gorgeously arrayed, in full official costume, began to show me a great many attentions. He was particularly polite, and pleasant, and anxious to be of service to me. Presently, he asked me what order of nobility I belonged to? I said, "I didn't belong to any." Then he asked me what order of knighthood I belonged to? I said, "None." Then he asked me what the red ribbon in my buttonhole stood for? I saw, at once, what an ass I had been making of myself, and was accordingly confused and embarrassed. I said the first thing that came into my mind, and that was that the ribbon was merely the symbol of a club of journalists to which I belonged, and I was not pursued with any more of Count Festetic's attentions.

Later, I got on very familiar terms with an old gentleman, whom I took to be the head gardener, and walked him all about the gardens, slipping my arm into his without invitation, yet without demur on his part, and by and by was confused again when I found that he was not a gardener at all, but the Lord High Admiral of Russia! I almost made up my mind that I would never call on an Emperor again.

Like all Mediterranean excursionists, those first pilgrims wereinsatiable collectors of curios, costumes, and all manner of outlandishthings. Dan Slote had the stateroom hung and piled with such gleanings.At Constantinople his room-mate writes:

I thought Dan had got the state-room pretty full of rubbish at last, but awhile ago his dragoman arrived with a brand-new ghastly tombstone of the Oriental pattern, with his name handsomely carved and gilted on it in Turkish characters. That fellow will buy a Circassian slave next.

It was Church, Denny, Jack, Davis, Dan, Moult, and Mark Twain who madethe "long trip" through Syria from Beirut to Jerusalem with theirelaborate camping outfit and decrepit nags "Jericho," "Baalbec," and therest. It was better camping than that Humboldt journey of six yearsbefore, though the horses were not so dissimilar, and altogether it was ahard, nerve-racking experience, climbing the arid hills of Palestine inthat torrid summer heat. Nobody makes that trip in summer-time now.Tourists hurry out of Syria before the first of April, and they do not goback before November. One brief quotation from Mark Twain's book givesus an idea of what that early party of pilgrims had to undergo:

We left Damascus at noon and rode across the plain a couple of hours, and then the party stopped a while in the shade of some fig- trees to give me a chance to rest. It was the hottest day we had seen yet--the sun-flames shot down like the shafts of fire that stream out before a blow-pipe; the rays seemed to fall in a deluge on the head and pass downward like rain from a roof. I imagined I could distinguish between the floods of rays. I thought I could tell when each flood struck my head, when it reached my shoulders, and when the next one came. It was terrible.

He had been ill with cholera at Damascus, a light attack; but any attackof that dread disease is serious enough. He tells of this in the book,but he does not mention, either in the book or in his notes, the attackwhich Dan Slote had some days later. It remained for William F. Church,of the party, to relate that incident, for it was the kind of thing thatMark Twain was not likely to record, or even to remember. Doctor Churchwas a deacon with orthodox views and did not approve of Mark Twain; hethought him sinful, irreverent, profane.

"He was the worst man I ever knew," Church said; then he added, "And thebest."

What happened was this: At the end of a terrible day of heat, when theparty had camped on the edge of a squalid Syrian village, Dan was takensuddenly ill. It was cholera, beyond doubt. Dan could not go on--hemight never go on. The chances were that way. It was a serious matterall around. To wait with Dan meant to upset their travel schedule--itmight mean to miss the ship. Consultation was held and a resolutionpassed (the pilgrims were always passing resolutions) to provide for Danas well as possible, and leave him behind. Clemens, who had remainedwith Dan, suddenly appeared and said:

"Gentlemen, I understand that you are going to leave Dan Slote herealone. I'll be d---d if I do!"

And he didn't. He stayed there and brought Dan into Jerusalem, a fewdays late, but convalescent.

Perhaps most of them were not always reverent during that Holy Land trip.It was a trying journey, and after fierce days of desert hills thereaction might not always spare even the holiest memories. Jack wasparticularly sinful. When they learned the price for a boat on Galilee,and the deacons who had traveled nearly half around the world to sail onthat sacred water were confounded by the charge, Jack said:

"Well, Denny, do you wonder now that Christ walked?"

It was the irreverent Jack who one morning (they had camped the nightbefore by the ruins of Jericho) refused to get up to see the sun riseacross the Jordan. Deacon Church went to his tent.

"Jack, my boy, get up. Here is the place where the Israelites crossedover into the Promised Land, and beyond are the mountains of Moab, whereMoses lies buried."

"Moses who!" said Jack.

"Oh, Jack, my boy, Moses, the great lawgiver--who led the Israelites outof Egypt-forty years through the wilderness--to the Promised Land."

"Forty years!" said Jack. "How far was it?"

"It was three hundred miles, Jack; a great wilderness, and he broughtthem through in safety."

Jack regarded him with scorn. "Huh, Moses--three hundred miles fortyyears--why, Ben Holiday would have brought them through in thirty-sixhours!"--[Ben Holiday, owner of the Overland stages, and a man of greatexecutive ability. This incident, a true one, is more elaborately toldin Roughing It, but it seems pertinent here.]

Jack probably learned more about the Bible during that trip-its historyand its heroes-than during all his former years. Nor was Jack the onlyone of that group thus benefited. The sacred landmarks of Palestineinspire a burning interest in the Scriptures, and Mark Twain probably didnot now regret those early Sunday-school lessons; certainly he did notfail to review them exhaustively on that journey. His note-books fairlyoverflow with Bible references; the Syrian chapters in The InnocentsAbroad are permeated with the poetry and legendary beauty of the Biblestory. The little Bible he carried on that trip, bought inConstantinople, was well worn by the time they reached the ship again atJaffa. He must have read it with a large and persistent interest; alsowith a double benefit. For, besides the knowledge acquired, he washarvesting a profit--probably unsuspected at the time---viz., theinfluence of the most direct and beautiful English--the English of theKing James version--which could not fail to affect his own literarymethod at that impressionable age. We have already noted his earlieradmiration for that noble and simple poem, "The Burial of Moses," whichin the Palestine note-book is copied in full. All the tendency of hisexpression lay that way, and the intense consideration of stately Biblephrase and imagery could hardly fail to influence his mental processes.The very distinct difference of style, as shown in The Innocents Abroadand in his earlier writings, we may believe was in no small measure dueto his study of the King James version during those weeks in Palestine.

He bought another Bible at Jerusalem; but it was not for himself. It wasa little souvenir volume bound in olive and balsam wood, and on the fly-leaf is inscribed:

Mrs. Jane Clemens from her son. Jerusalem, Sept. 24, 1867.

There is one more circumstance of that long cruise-recorded neither inthe book nor the notes--an incident brief, but of more importance in thelife of Samuel Clemens than any heretofore set down. It occurred in thebeautiful Bay of Smyrna, on the fifth or sixth of September, while thevessel lay there for the Ephesus trip.

Reference has been made to young Charles Langdon, of Elmira (the"Charley" once mentioned in the Innocents), as an admirer of Mark Twain.There was a good deal of difference in their ages, and they were seldomof the same party; but sometimes the boy invited the journalist to hiscabin and, boy-like, exhibited his treasures. He had two sisters athome; and of Olivia, the youngest, he had brought a dainty miniature doneon ivory in delicate tints--a sweet-pictured countenance, fine andspiritual. On that fateful day in the day of Smyrna, Samuel Clemens,visiting in young Langdon's cabin, was shown this portrait. He looked atit with long admiration, and spoke of it reverently, for the delicateface seemed to him to be something more than a mere human likeness. Eachtime he came, after that, he asked to see the picture, and once evenbegged to be allowed to take it away with him. The boy would not agreeto this, and the elder man looked long and steadily at the miniature,resolving in his mind that some day he would meet the owner of thatlovely face--a purpose for once in accord with that which the fates hadarranged for him, in the day when all things were arranged, the day ofthe first beginning.

LXII

THE RETURN OF THE PILGRIMS

The last note-book entry bears date of October 11th:

At sea, somewhere in the neighborhood of Malta. Very stormy.

Terrible death to be talked to death. The storm has blown two small land birds and a hawk to sea and they came on board. Sea full of flying-fish.

That is all. There is no record of the week's travel in Spain, which alittle group of four made under the picturesque Gibraltar guide, Benunes,still living and quite as picturesque at last accounts. This side-tripis covered in a single brief paragraph in the Innocents, and the onlyaccount we have of it is in a home letter, from Cadiz, of October 24th:

We left Gibraltar at noon and rode to Algeciras (4 hours), thus dodging the quarantine--took dinner, and then rode horseback all night in a swinging trot, and at daylight took a caleche (a-wheeled vehicle), and rode 5 hours--then took cars and traveled till twelve at night. That landed us at Seville, and we were over the hard part of our trip and somewhat tired. Since then we have taken things comparatively easy, drifting around from one town to another and attracting a good deal of attention--for I guess strangers do not wander through Andalusia and the other southern provinces of Spain often. The country is precisely what it was when Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were possible characters.

But I see now what the glory of Spain must have been when it was under Moorish domination. No, I will not say that--but then when one is carried away, infatuated, entranced, with the wonders of the Alhambra and the supernatural beauty of the Alcazar, he is apt to overflow with admiration for the splendid intellects that created them.

We may wish that he had left us a chapter of that idyllic journey, but itwill never be written now. A night or two before the vessel reached NewYork there was the usual good-by assembly, and for this occasion, at Mrs.Severance's request, Mark Twain wrote some verses. They were notespecially notable, for meter and rhyme did not come easy to him, but oneprophetic stanza is worth remembering. In the opening lines thepassengers are referred to as a fleet of vessels, then follows:

Lo! other ships of that parted fleet Shall suffer this fate or that: One shall be wrecked, another shall sink, Or ground on treacherous flat. Some shall be famed in many lands As good ships, fast and fair, And some shall strangely disappear, Men know not when or where.

The Quaker City returned to America on November 19, 1867, and Mark Twainfound himself, if not famous, at least in very wide repute. The fifty-three letters to the Alta and the half-dozen to the New York Tribune hadcarried his celebrity into every corner of the States and Territories.Vivid, fearless, full of fresh color, humor, poetry, they came as arevelation to a public weary of the driveling, tiresome travel-letters ofthat period. They preached a new gospel in travel-literature: the gospelof seeing with an overflowing honesty; a gospel of sincerity in accordingpraises to whatever seemed genuine, and ridicule to the things consideredsham. It was the gospel that Mark Twain would continue to preach duringhis whole career. It became his chief literary message to the world-aworld waiting for that message.

Moreover, the letters were literature. He had received, from whateversource, a large and very positive literary impulse, a loftier conceptionand expression. It was at Tangier that he first struck the granderchord, the throbbing cadence of human story.

Here is a crumbling wall that was old when Columbus discovered America;old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men of the Middle Ages toarm for the first Crusade; old when Charlemagne and his paladinsbeleaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants and genii in thefabled days of the olden time; old when Christ and his disciples walkedthe earth; stood where it stands to-day when the lips of Memnon werevocal and men bought and sold in the streets of ancient Thebes.

This is pure poetry. He had never touched so high a strain before, buthe reached it often after that, and always with an ever-increasingmastery and confidence. In Venice, in Rome, in Athens, through the HolyLand, his retrospection becomes a stately epic symphony, a processionalcrescendo that swings ever higher until it reaches that sublime strain,the ageless contemplation of the Sphinx. We cannot forego a paragraph ortwo of that word-picture:

After years of waiting it was before me at last. The great face was so sad, so earnest, so longing, so patient. There was a dignity not of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity such as never anything human wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of the landscape, yet looking at nothing--nothing but distance and vacancy. It was looking over and beyond everything of the present, and far into the past.... It was thinking of the wars of the departed ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow-revolving years . . . .

The Sphinx is grand in its loneliness; it is imposing in its magnitude; it is impressive in the mystery that hangs over its story. And there is that in the overshadowing majesty of this eternal figure of stone, with its accusing memory of the deeds of all ages, which reveals to one something of what we shall feel when we shall stand at last in the awful presence of God.

Then that closing word of Egypt. He elaborated it for the book, and didnot improve it. Let us preserve here its original form.

We are glad to have seen Egypt. We are glad to have seen that old land which taught Greece her letters--and through Greece, Rome--and through Rome, the world--that venerable cradle of culture and refinement which could have humanized and civilized the Children of Israel, but allowed them to depart out of her borders savages--those Children whom we still revere, still love, and whose sad shortcomings we still excuse--not because they were savages, but because they were the chosen savages of God.

The Holy Land letters alone would have brought him fame. They presentedthe most graphic and sympathetic picture of Syrian travel ever written--one that will never become antiquated or obsolete so long as human natureremains unchanged. From beginning to end the tale is rarely, reverentlytold. Its closing paragraph has not been surpassed in the voluminousliterature of that solemn land:

Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers that solemn sea now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists--over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and dead--about whose borders nothing grows but weeds and scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed lies a moldering ruin today, even as Joshua's miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Saviour's presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, goodwill to men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature that is pleasant to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel is gone, and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day in the annals of the world, they reared the Holy Cross. The noted Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate the miraculous bread sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.

Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land?

It would be easy to quote pages here--a pictorial sequence from Gibraltarto Athens, from Athens to Egypt, a radiant panoramic march. In time hewould write technically better. He would avoid solecism, he would becomea greater master of vocabulary and phrase, but in all the years ahead hewould never match the lambent bloom and spontaneity of those fresh, firstimpressions of Mediterranean lands and seas. No need to mention thehumor, the burlesque, the fearless, unrestrained ridicule of old mastersand of sacred relics, so called. These we have kept familiar with muchrepetition. Only, the humor had grown more subtle, more restrained; theburlesque had become impersonal and harmless, the ridicule so frank andgood-natured, that even the old masters themselves might have enjoyed it,while the most devoted churchman, unless blinded by bigotry, would findin it satisfaction, rather than sacrilege.

The final letter was written for the New York Herald after the arrival,and was altogether unlike those that preceded it. Gaily satirical andpersonal--inclusively so--it might better have been left unwritten, forit would seem to have given needless offense to a number of goodlypeople, whose chief sin was the sedateness of years. However, it is allpast now, and those who were old then, and perhaps queer and pious andstingy, do not mind any more, and those who were young and frivolous haveall grown old too, and most of them have set out on the still farthervoyage. Somewhere, it may be, they gather, now; and then, and lightly,tenderly recall their old-time journeying.

LXIII

IN WASHINGTON--A PUBLISHING PROPOSITION

Clemens remained but one day in New York. Senator Stewart had written,about the time of the departure of the Quaker City, offering him theposition of private secretary--a position which was to give him leisurefor literary work, with a supporting salary as well. Stewart no doubtthought it would be considerably to his advantage to have the brilliantwriter and lecturer attached to his political establishment, and Clemenslikewise saw possibilities in the arrangement. From Naples, in August,he had written accepting Stewart's offer; he lost no time now indiscussing the matter in person.--[In a letter home, August 9th, hereferred to the arrangement: "I wrote to Bill Stewart to-day acceptinghis private secretaryship in Washington, next winter."]

There seems to have been little difficulty in concluding the arrangement.When Clemens had been in Washington a week we find him writing:

DEAR FOLKS, Tired and sleepy--been in Congress all day and making newspaper acquaintances. Stewart is to look up a clerkship in the Patent Office for Orion. Things necessarily move slowly where there is so much business and such armies of office-seekers to be attended to. I guess it will be all right. I intend it shall be all right.

I have 18 invitations to lecture, at $100 each, in various parts of the Union--have declined them all. I am for business now.

Belong on the Tribune Staff, and shall write occasionally. Am offered the same berth to-day on the Herald by letter. Shall write Mr. Bennett and accept, as soon as I hear from Tribune that it will not interfere. Am pretty well known now--intend to be better known. Am hobnobbing with these old Generals and Senators and other humbugs for no good purpose. Don't have any more trouble making friends than I did in California. All serene. Good-by. Shall continue on the Alta. Yours affectionately, SAM.

P.S.--I room with Bill Stewart and board at Willard's Hotel.

But the secretary arrangement was a brief matter. It is impossible toconceive of Mark Twain as anybody's secretary, especially as thesecretary of Senator Stewart.

--[In Senator Stewart's memoirs he refers unpleasantly to Mark Twain, andafter relating several incidents that bear only strained relations to thetruth, states that when the writer returned from the Holy Land he(Stewart) offered him a secretaryship as a sort of charity. He adds thatMark Twain's behavior on his premises was such that a threat of athrashing was necessary. The reason for such statements becomesapparent, however, when he adds that in 'Roughing It' the author accuseshim of cheating, prints a picture of him with a hatch over his eye, andclaims to have given him a sound thrashing, none of which statements,save only the one concerning the picture (an apparently unforgivableoffense to his dignity), is true, as the reader may easily ascertain forhimself.]

Within a few weeks he was writing humorous accounts of "My LateSenatorial Secretaryship," "Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation,"etc., all good-natured burlesque, but inspired, we. may believe, by thechange: These articles appeared in the New York Tribune, the New YorkCitizen, and the Galaxy Magazine.

There appears to have been no ill-feeling at this time between Clemensand Stewart. If so, it is not discoverable in any of the former'spersonal or newspaper correspondence. In fact, in his article relatingto his "late senatorial secretaryship" he puts the joke, so far as it isa joke, on Senator James W. Nye, probably as an additional punishment forNye's failure to appear on the night of his lecture. He establishedheadquarters with a brilliant newspaper correspondent named Riley. "Oneof the best men in Washington--or elsewhere," he tells us in a briefsketch of that person.--[See Riley, newspaper correspondent. SketchesNew and Old.]--He had known Riley in San Francisco; the two werecongenial, and settled down to their several undertakings.

Clemens was chiefly concerned over two things: he wished to make moneyand he wished to secure a government appointment for Orion. He had usedup the most of his lecture accumulations, and was moderately in debt.His work was in demand at good rates, for those days, and with workingopportunity he could presently dispose of his financial problem. TheTribune was anxious for letters; the Enterprise and Alta were waiting forthem; the Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the magazines--all had solicitedcontributions; the lecture bureaus pursued him. Personally his outlookwas bright.

The appointment for Orion was a different matter. The powers were notespecially interested in a brother; there were too many brothers andassorted relatives on the official waiting-list already. Clemens wasoffered appointments for himself--a consulship, a post-mastership; eventhat of San Francisco. From the Cabinet down, the Washington politicalcontingent had read his travel-letters, and was ready to recognizeofficially the author of them in his own person and personality.

Also, socially: Mark Twain found himself all at once in the midst ofreceptions, dinners, and speech-making; all very exciting for a time atleast, but not profitable, not conducive to work. At a dinner of theWashington Correspondents Club his response to the toast, "Women," waspronounced by Schuyler Colfax to be "the best after dinner speech evermade." Certainly it was a refreshing departure from the prosy or clumsy-witted efforts common to that period. He was coming altogether into hisown.--[This is the first of Mark Twain's after-dinner speeches to bepreserved. The reader will find it complete, as reported next day, inAppendix G, at the end of last volume.]

He was not immediately interested in the matter of book publication.The Jumping Frog book was popular, and in England had been issued byRoutledge; but the royalty returns were modest enough and slow inarrival. His desire was for prompter results. His interest in bookpublication had never been an eager one, and related mainly to theadvertising it would furnish, which he did not now need; or to the moneyreturn, in which he had no great faith. Yet at this very moment a letterfor him was lying in the Tribune office in New York which would bring thebook idea into first prominence and spell the beginning of his fortune.

Among those who had read and found delight in the Tribune letters wasElisha Bliss, Jr., of the American Publishing Company, of Hartford.Bliss was a shrewd and energetic man, with a keen appreciation for humorand the American fondness for that literary quality. He had recentlyundertaken the management of a Hartford concern, and had somewhat alarmedits conservative directorate by publishing books that furnishedentertainment to the reader as well as moral instruction. Only hissuccess in paying dividends justified this heresy and averted hisdownfall. Two days after the arrival of the Quaker City Bliss wrote theletter above mentioned. It ran as follows:

OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO. HARTFORD, CONN., November 21, 1867.

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, ESQ.,Tribune Office, New York.

DEAR SIR,--We take the liberty to address you this, in place of a letterwhich we had recently written and were about to forward to you, notknowing your arrival home was expected so soon. We are desirous ofobtaining from you a work of some kind, perhaps compiled from yourletters from the past, etc., with such interesting additions as may beproper. We are the publishers of A. D. Richardson's works, and flatterourselves that we can give an author a favorable term and do as fulljustice to his productions as any other house in the country. We areperhaps the oldest subscription house in the country, and have neverfailed to give a book an immense circulation. We sold about 100,000copies of Richardson's F. D. and E. ('Field, Dungeon and Escape'), andare now printing 41,000 of 'Beyond the Mississippi', and large ordersahead. If you have any thought of writing a book, or could be induced todo so, we should be pleased to see you, and will do so. Will you do usthe favor of reply at once, at your earliest convenience.

Very truly etc.,

E. BLISS, JR., Secretary.

After ten days' delay this letter was forwarded to the Tribune bureau inWashington, where Clemens received it. He replied promptly.

WASHINGTON, December 2, 1867.

E. BLISS, JR., ESQ.,Secretary American Publishing Co.

DEAR SIR,--I only received your favor of November 21st last night, at therooms of the Tribune Bureau here. It was forwarded from the Tribuneoffice, New York where it had lain eight or ten days. This will be asufficient apology for the seeming discourtesy of my silence.

I wrote fifty-two letters for the San Francisco Alta California duringthe Quakes City excusion, about half of which number have been printedthus far. The Alta has few exchanges in the East, and I suppose scarcelyany of these letters have been copied on this side of the RockyMountains. I could weed them of their chief faults of construction andinelegancies of expression, and make a volume that would be moreacceptable in many respects than any I could now write. When thoseletters were written my impressions were fresh, but now they have lostthat freshness; they were warm then, they are cold now. I could strikeout certain letters, and write new ones wherewith to supply their places.If you think such a book would suit your purpose, please drop me a line,specifying the size and general style of the volume--when the matterought to be ready; whether it should have pictures in it or not; andparticularly what your terms with me would be, and what amount of moneyI might possibly make out of it. The latter clause has a degree ofimportance for me which is almost beyond my own comprehension. But youunderstand that, of course.

I have other propositions for a book, but have doubted the propriety ofinterfering with good newspaper engagements, except my way as an authorcould be demonstrated to be plain before me. But I know Richardson, andlearned from him some months ago something of an idea of the subscriptionplan of publishing. If that is your plan invariably it looks safe.

I am on the New York Tribune staff here as an "occasional," among otherthings, and a note from you addressed to Very truly, etc., SAM. L. CLEMENS, New York Tribune Bureau, Washingtonwill find me, without fail.

The exchange of those two letters marked the beginning of one of the mostnotable publishing connections in American literary history.

Consummation, however, was somewhat delayed. Bliss was ill when thereply came, and could not write again in detail until nearly a monthlater. In this letter he recited the profits made by Richardson andothers through subscription publication, and named the royalties paid.Richardson had received four per cent. of the sale price, a small enoughrate for these later days; but the cost of manufacture was larger then,and the sale and delivery of books through agents has ever been anexpensive process. Even Horace Greeley had received but a fraction moreon his Great American Conflict. Bliss especially suggested andemphasized a "humorous work--that is to say, a work humorously inclined."He added that they had two arrangements for paying authors: outrightpurchase, and royalty. He invited a meeting in New York to arrangeterms.

LXIV

OLIVIA LANGDON

Clemens did in fact go to New York that same evening, to spend Christmaswith Dan Slote, and missed Bliss's second letter. It was no matter.Fate had his affairs properly in hand, and had prepared an event of stilllarger moment than the publication even of Innocents Abroad. There was apleasant reunion at Dan Slote's. He wrote home about it:

Charley Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, Dan and I (all Quaker City night-hawks) had a blow-out at Dan's house and a lively talk over old times. I just laughed till my sides ached at some of our reminiscences. It was the unholiest gang that ever cavorted through Palestine, but those are the best boys in the world.

This, however, was not the event; it was only preliminary to it. We arecoming to that now. At the old St. Nicholas Hotel, which stood on thewest of Broadway between Spring and Broome streets, there were stoppingat this time Jervis Langdon, a wealty coal-dealer and mine-owner ofElmira, his son Charles and his daughter Olivia, whose pictured faceSamuel Clemens had first seen in the Bay of Smyrna one September day.Young Langdon had been especially anxious to bring his distinguishedQuaker City friend and his own people together, and two days beforeChristmas Samuel Clemens was invited to dine at the hotel. He went verywillingly. The lovely face of that miniature had been often a part ofhis waking dreams. For the first time now he looked upon its reality.Long afterward he said:

"It is forty years ago. From that day to this she has never been out ofmy mind."

Charles Dickens was in New York then, and gave a reading that night inSteinway Hall. The Langdons went, and Samuel Clemens accompanied them.He remembered afterward that Dickens wore a black velvet coat with afiery red flower in his buttonhole, and that he read the storm scene fromCopperfield--the death of James Steerforth. But he remembered still moreclearly the face and dress of that slender girlish figure at his side.

Olivia Langdon was twenty-two years old at this time, delicate as theminiature he had seen, fragile to look upon, though no longer with theshattered health of her girlhood. At sixteen, through a fall upon theice, she had become a complete invalid, confined to her bed for twoyears, unable to sit, even when supported, unable to lie in any positionexcept upon her back. Great physicians and surgeons, one after another,had done their best for her but she had failed steadily until every hopehad died. Then, when nothing else was left to try, a certain DoctorNewton, of spectacular celebrity, who cured by "laying on of hands," wasbrought to Elmira to see her. Doctor Newton came into the darkened roomand said:

"Open the windows--we must have light!"

They protested that she could not bear the light, but the windows wereopened. Doctor Newton came to the bedside of the helpless girl,delivered a short, fervent prayer, put his arm under her shoulders, andbade her sit up. She had not moved for two years, and the family werealarmed, but she obeyed, and he assisted her into a chair. Sensationcame back to her limbs. With his assistance she even made a feebleattempt to walk. He left then, saying that she would gradually improve,and in time be well, though probably never very strong. On the same dayhe healed a boy, crippled and drawn with fever.

It turned out as he had said. Olivia Langdon improved steadily, and nowat twenty-two, though not robust--she was never that--she wascomparatively well. Gentle, winning, lovable, she was the family idol,and Samuel Clemens joined in their worship from the moment of that firstmeeting.

Olivia Langdon, on her part, was at first dazed and fascinated, ratherthan attracted, by this astonishing creature, so unlike any one she hadever known. Her life had been circumscribed, her experiences of a simplesort. She had never seen anything resembling him before. Indeed, nobodyhad. Somewhat carelessly, even if correctly, attired; eagerly, ratherthan observantly, attentive; brilliant and startling, rather thancultured, of speech--a blazing human solitaire, unfashioned, unset,tossed by the drift of fortune at her feet. He disturbed rather thangratified her. She sensed his heresy toward the conventions and formswhich had been her gospel; his bantering, indifferent attitude towardlife--to her always so serious and sacred; she suspected that he evenmight have unorthodox views on matters of religion. When he had gone shesomehow had the feeling that a great fiery meteor of unknown portent hadswept across her sky.

To her brother, who was eager for her approval of his celebrity, MissLangdon conceded admiration. As for her father, he did not qualify hisopinion. With hearty sense of humor, and a keen perception of verity andcapability in men, Jervis Langdon accepted Samuel Clemens from the start,and remained his stanch admirer and friend. Clemens left that night withan invitation to visit Elmira by and by, and with the full intention ofgoing--soon. Fate, however, had another plan. He did not see Elmira forthe better part of a year.

He saw Miss Langdon again within the week. On New-Year's Day he setforth to pay calls, after the fashion of the time--more lavish then thannow. Miss Langdon was receiving with Miss Alice Hooker, a niece of HenryWard Beecher, at the home of a Mrs. Berry; he decided to go there first.With young Langdon he arrived at eleven o'clock in the morning, and theydid not leave until midnight. If his first impression upon OliviaLangdon had been meteoric, it would seem that he must now have become toher as a streaming comet that swept from zenith to horizon. One thing iscertain: she had become to him the single, unvarying beacon of his futureyears. He visited Henry Ward Beecher on that trip and dined with him byinvitation. Harriet Beecher Stowe was present, and others of thateminent family. Likewise his old Quaker City comrades, Moses S. andEmma Beach. It was a brilliant gathering, a conclave of intellectualgods--a triumph to be there for one who had been a printer-boy on thebanks of the Mississippi, and only a little while before a miner withpick and shovel. It was gratifying to be so honored; it would bepleasant to write home; but the occasion lacked something too--everything, in fact--for when he ran his eye around the board the face ofthe minature was not there.

Still there were compensations; inadequate, of course, but pleasantenough to remember. It was Sunday evening and the party adjourned toPlymouth Church. After services Mr. Beecher invited him to return homewith him for a quiet talk. Evidently they had a good time, for in theletter telling of these things Samuel Clemens said: "Henry Ward Beecheris a brick."

LXV

A CONTRACT WITH ELISHA BLISS, JR.

He returned to Washington without seeing Miss Langdon again, though hewould seem to have had permission to write--friendly letters. A littlelater (it was on the evening of January 9th) he lectured in Washington--on very brief notice indeed. The arrangement for his appearance had beenmade by a friend during his absence--"a friend," Clemens declaredafterward, "not entirely sober at the time." To his mother he wrote:

I scared up a doorkeeper and was ready at the proper time, and by puregood luck a tolerably good house assembled and I was saved. I hardlyknew what I was going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style.

The title of the lecture delivered was "The Frozen Truth"--"more truth inthe title than in the lecture," according to his own statement. What itdealt with is not remembered now. It had to do with the Quaker Citytrip, perhaps, and it seems to have brought a financial return which waswelcome enough. Subsequently he delivered it elsewhere; though just howfar the tour extended cannot be learned from the letters, and he had butlittle memory of it in later years.

There was some further correspondence with Bliss, then about the 21st ofJanuary (1868) Clemens made a trip to Hartford to settle the matter.Bliss had been particularly anxious to meet him, personally and was atrifle disappointed with his appearance. Mark Twain's traveling costumewas neither new nor neat, and he was smoking steadily a pipe of power.His general make-up was hardly impressive.

Bliss's disturbance was momentary. Once he began to talk the rest didnot matter. He was the author of those letters, and Bliss decided thatpersonally he was even greater than they. The publisher, confined to hishome with illness, offered him the hospitality of his household. Also,he made him two propositions: he would pay him ten thousand dollars cashfor his copyright, or he would pay five per cent. royalty, which was afourth more than Richardson had received. He advised the latterarrangement.

Clemens had already taken advice and had discussed the project a gooddeal with Richardson. The ten thousand dollars was a heavy temptation,but he withstood it and closed on the royalty basis--"the best businessjudgment I ever displayed," he was wont to declare. A letter written tohis mother and sister near the end of this Hartford stay is worth quotingpretty fully here, for the information and "character" it contains. Itbears date of January 24th.

This is a good week for me. I stopped in the Herald office, as I came through New York, to see the boys on the staff, and young James Gordon Bennett asked me to write twice a week, impersonally, for the Herald, and said if I would I might have full swing, and about anybody and everything I wanted to. I said I must have the very fullest possible swing, and he said, "All right." I said, "It's a contract--" and that settled that matter.

I'll make it a point to write one letter a week anyhow. But the best thing that has happened is here. This great American Publishing Company kept on trying to bargain with me for a book till I thought I would cut the matter short by coming up for a talk. I met Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, and with his usual whole-souled way of dropping his own work to give other people a lift when he gets a chance, he said: "Now, here, you are one of the talented men of the age--nobody is going to deny that--but in matters of business I don't suppose you know more than enough to come in when it rains. I'll tell you what to do and how to do it." And he did.

And I listened well, and then came up here and made a splendid contract for a Quaker City book of 5 or 600 large pages, with illustrations, the manuscript to be placed in the publisher's hands by the middle of July.--[The contract was not a formal one. There was an exchange of letters agreeing to the terms, but no joint document was drawn until October 16 (1868).]--My percentage is to be a fourth more than they have ever paid any author except Greeley. Beecher will be surprised, I guess, when he hears this.

These publishers get off the most tremendous editions of their books you can imagine. I shall write to the Enterprise and Alta every week, as usual, I guess, and to the Herald twice a week, occasionally to the Tribune and the magazines (I have a stupid article in the Galaxy, just issued), but I am not going to write to this and that and the other paper any more.

I have had a tiptop time here for a few days (guest of Mr. Jno. Hooker's family--Beecher's relatives--in a general way of Mr. Bliss also, who is head of the publishing firm). Puritans are mighty straight-laced, and they won't let me smoke in the parlor, but the Almighty don't make any better people.

I have to make a speech at the annual Herald dinner on the 6th of May.

So the book, which would establish his claim to a peerage in the literaryland, was arranged for, and it remained only to prepare the manuscript, atask which he regarded as not difficult. He had only to collate the Altaand Tribune letters, edit them, and write such new matter as would berequired for completeness.

Returning to Washington, he plunged into work with his usual terrificenergy, preparing the copy--in the mean time writing newspapercorrespondence and sketches that would bring immediate return. Inaddition to his regular contributions, he entered into a syndicatearrangement with John Swinton (brother of William Swinton, the historian)to supply letters to a list of newspapers.

"I have written seven long newspaper letters and a short magazine articlein less than two days," he wrote home, and by the end of January he hadalso prepared several chapters of his book.

The San Francisco post-mastership was suggested to him again, but he putthe temptation behind him. He refers to this more than once in his homeletters, and it is clear that he wavered.

Judge Field said if I wanted the place he could pledge me the President's appointment, and Senator Corners said he would guarantee me the Senate's confirmation. It was a great temptation, but it would render it impossible to fill my book contract, and I had to drop the idea....

And besides I did not want the office.

He made this final decision when he heard that the chief editor of theAlta wanted the place, and he now threw his influence in that quarter."I would not take ten thousand dollars out of a friend's pocket," hesaid.

But then suddenly came the news from Goodman that the Alta publishers hadcopyrighted his Quaker City letters and proposed getting them out in abook, to reimburse themselves still further on their investment. Thiswas sharper than a serpent's tooth. Clemens got confirmation of thereport by telegraph. By the same medium he protested, but to no purpose.Then he wrote a letter and sat down to wait. He reported his troubles toOrion:

I have made a superb contract for a book, and have prepared the first ten chapters of the sixty or eighty, but I will bet it never sees the light. Don't you let the folks at home hear that. That thieving Alta copyrighted the letters, and now shows no disposition to let me use them. I have done all I can by telegraph, and now await the final result by mail. I only charged them for 50 letters what (even in) greenbacks would amount to less than two thousand dollars, intending to write a good deal for high-priced Eastern papers, and now they want to publish my letters in book form themselves to get back that pitiful sum.

Orion was by this time back from Nevada, setting type in St. Louis. Hewas full of schemes, as usual, and his brother counsels him freely. Thenhe says:

We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other half.

I am in for it. I must go on chasing them, until I marry, then I am done with literature and all other bosh--that is, literature wherewith to please the general public.

I shall write to please myself then.

He closes by saying that he rather expects to go with Anson Burlingame onthe Chinese embassy. Clearly he was pretty hopeless as to his bookprospects.

His first meeting with General Grant occurred just at this time. In oneof his home letters he mentions, rather airily, that he will drop insomeday on the General for an interview; and at last, through Mrs. Grant,an appointment was made for a Sunday evening when the General would be athome. He was elated with the prospect of an interview; but when helooked into the imperturbable, square, smileless face of the soldier hefound himself, for the first time in his life, without anythingparticular to say. Grant nodded slightly and waited. His caller wishedsomething would happen. It did. His inspiration returned.

"General," he said, "I seem to be a little embarrassed. Are you?"

That broke the ice. There were no further difficulties.--[Mark Twainhas variously related this incident. It is given here in accordance withthe letters of the period.]

LXVI

BACK TO SAN FRANCISCO

Reply came from the Alta, but it was not promising. It spoke rathervaguely of prior arrangements and future possibilities. Clemens gatheredthat under certain conditions he might share in the profits of theventure. There was but one thing to do; he knew those people--some ofthem--Colonel McComb and a Mr. McCrellish intimately. He must conferwith them in person.

He was weary of Washington, anyway. The whole pitiful machinery ofpolitics disgusted him. In his notebook he wrote:

Whiskey is taken into the committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.

And in a letter:

This is a place to get a poor opinion of everybody in. There are some pitiful intellects in this Congress! There isn't one man in Washington in civil office who has the brains of Anson Burlingame, and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great talents to the world this government would have discarded him when his time was up.--[Anson Burlingame had by this time become China's special ambassador to the nations.]

Furthermore, he was down on the climate of Washington. He decided to goto San Francisco and see "those Alta thieves face to face." Then, if abook resulted, he could prepare it there among friends. Also, he couldlecture.

He had been anxious to visit his people before sailing, but matters weretoo urgent to permit delay. He obtained from Bliss an advance of royaltyand took passage, by way of Aspinwall, on the sidewheel steamer HenryChauncey, a fine vessel for those days. The name of Mark Twain wasalready known on the isthmus, and when it was learned he had arrived onthe Chauncey a delegation welcomed him on the wharf, and provided himwith refreshments and entertainment. Mr. Tracy Robinson, a poet, long aresident of that southern land, was one of the group. Beyond the isthmusClemens fell in again with his old captain, Ned Wakeman, who during thetrip told him the amazing dream that in due time would become CaptainStormfield's Visit to Heaven. He made the first draft of this story soonafter his arrival in San Francisco, as a sort of travesty of ElizabethStuart Phelps's Gates Ajar, then very popular. Clemens, then and later,had a high opinion of Capt. Ned Wakeman's dream, but his story of itwould pass through several stages before finally reaching the light ofpublication.--[Mr. John P. Vollmer, now of Lewiston, Idaho, acompanion of that voyage, writes of a card game which took place beyondthe isthmus. The notorious crippled gambler, "Smithy," figured in it,and it would seem to have furnished the inspiration for the excitingstory in Chapter XXXVI of the Mississippi book.]

In San Francisco matters turned out as he had hoped. Colonel McComb washis stanch friend; McCrellish and Woodward, the proprietors, presentlyconceded that they had already received good value for the money paid.The author agreed to make proper acknowledgments to the Alta in hispreface, and the matter was settled with friendliness all around.

The way was now clear, the book assured. First, however, he must providehimself with funds. He delivered a lecture, with the Quaker Cityexcursion as his subject. On the 5th of May he wrote to Bliss:

I lectured here on the trip the other night; over $1,600 in gold in thehouse; every seat taken and paid for before night.

He reports that he is steadily at work, and expects to start East withthe completed manuscript about the middle of June.

But this was a miscalculation. Clemens found that the letters neededmore preparation than he had thought. His literary vision and equipmenthad vastly altered since the beginning of that correspondence. Some ofthe chapters he rewrote; others he eliminated entirely. It required twomonths of fairly steady work to put the big manuscript together.

Some of the new chapters he gave to Bret Harte for the Overland Monthly,then recently established. Harte himself was becoming a celebrity aboutthis time. His "Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat,"published in early numbers of the Overland, were making a great stir inthe East, arousing there a good deal more enthusiasm than in the magazineoffice or the city of their publication. That these two friends, eachsupreme in his own field, should have entered into their heritage sonearly at the same moment, is one of the many seemingly curiouscoincidences of literary history.

Clemens now concluded to cover his lecture circuit of two years before.He was assured that it would be throwing away a precious opportunity notto give his new lecture to his old friends. The result justified thatopinion. At Virginia, at Carson, and elsewhere he was received like areturned conqueror. He might have been accorded a Roman triumph hadthere been time and paraphernalia. Even the robbers had reformed, andentire safety was guaranteed him on the Divide between Virginia and GoldHill. At Carson he called on Mrs. Curry, as in the old days, and amongother things told her how snow from the Lebanon Mountains is brought toDamascus on the backs of camels.

"Sam," she said, "that's just one of your yarns, and if you tell it inyour lecture to-night I'll get right up and say so."

But he did tell it, for it was a fact; and though Mrs. Curry did not riseto deny it she shook her finger at him in a way he knew.

He returned to San Francisco and gave one more lecture, the last he wouldever give in California. His preparatory advertising for that occasionwas wholly unique, characteristic of him to the last degree. It assumedthe form of a handbill of protest, supposed to have been issued by theforemost citizens of San Francisco, urging him to return to the Stateswithout inflicting himself further upon them. As signatures he made freewith the names of prominent individuals, followed by those oforganizations, institutions, "Various Benevolent Societies, Citizens onFoot and Horseback, and fifteen hundred in the Steerage."

Following this (on the same bill) was his reply, "To the fifteen hundredand others," in which he insisted on another hearing:

I will torment the people if I want to.... It only costs the people $1 apiece, and if they can't stand it what do they stay here for?... My last lecture was not as fine as I thought it was, but I have submitted this discourse to several able critics, and they have pronounced it good. Now, therefore, why should I withhold it?

He promised positively to sail on the 6th of July if they would let himtalk just this once. Continuing, the handbill presented a secondprotest, signed by the various clubs and business firms; also othersbearing variously the signatures of the newspapers, and the clergy,ending with the brief word:

You had better go. Yours, CHIEF OF POLICE.

All of which drollery concluded with his announcement of place and dateof his lecture, with still further gaiety at the end. Nothing short of aseismic cataclysm--an earthquake, in fact--could deter a San Franciscoaudience after that. Mark Twain's farewell address, given at theMercantile Library July 2 (1868), doubtless remains today the leadingliterary event in San Francisco's history.--[Copy of the lectureannouncement, complete, will be found in Appendix H, at the end of lastvolume.]

He sailed July 6th by the Pacific mail steamer Montana to Acapulco,caught the Henry Chauncey at Aspinwall, reached New York on the 28th, anda day or two later had delivered his manuscript at Hartford.

But a further difficulty had arisen. Bliss was having troubles himself,this time, with his directors. Many reports of Mark Twain's new book hadbeen traveling the rounds of the press, some of which declared it was tobe irreverent, even blasphemous, in tone. The title selected, The NewPilgrim's Progress, was in itself a sacrilege. Hartford was aconservative place; the American Publishing Company directors were oforthodox persuasion. They urged Bliss to relieve the company of thisimpending disaster of heresy. When the author arrived one or more ofthem labored with him in person, without avail. As for Bliss, he wasstanch; he believed in the book thoroughly, from every standpoint. Hedeclared if the company refused to print it he would resign themanagement and publish the book himself. This was an alarming suggestionto the stockholders. Bliss had returned dividends--a boon altogether toorare in the company's former history. The objectors retired and wereheard of no more. The manuscript was placed in the hands of Fay and Cox,illustrators, with an order for about two hundred and fifty pictures.

Fay and Cox turned it over to True Williams, one of the well-knownillustrators of that day. Williams was a man of great talent--of fineimagination and sweetness of spirit--but it was necessary to lock him ina room when industry was required, with nothing more exciting than coldwater as a beverage. Clemens himself aided in the illustrating byobtaining of Moses S. Beach photographs from the large collection he hadbrought home.

LXVII

A VISIT TO ELMIRA

Meantime he had skilfully obtained a renewal of the invitation to spend aweek in the Langdon home.

He meant to go by a fast train, but, with his natural gift formisunderstanding time-tables, of course took a slow one, telegraphing hisapproach from different stations along the road. Young Langdon concludedto go down the line as far as Waverly to meet him. When the New Yorktrain reached there the young man found his guest in the smoking-car,travel-stained and distressingly clad. Mark Twain was alwaysscrupulously neat and correct of dress in later years, but in thatearlier day neatness and style had not become habitual and did not givehim comfort. Langdon greeted him warmly but with doubt. Finally hesummoned courage to say, hesitatingly--

"You've got some other clothes, haven't you?"

The arriving guest was not in the least disturbed.

"Oh yes," he said with enthusiasm, "I've got a fine brand-new outfit inthis bag, all but a hat. It will be late when we get in, and I won't seeany one to-night. You won't know me in the morning. We'll go out earlyand get a hat."

This was a large relief to the younger man, and the rest of the journeywas happy enough. True to promise, the guest appeared at daylightcorrectly, even elegantly clad, and an early trip to the shops securedthe hat. A gay and happy week followed--a week during which SamuelClemens realized more fully than ever that in his heart there was roomfor only one woman in all the world: Olivia Langdon--"Livy," as they allcalled her--and as the day of departure drew near it may be that thegentle girl had made some discoveries, too.

No word had passed between them. Samuel Clemens had the old-fashionedSouthern respect for courtship conventions, and for what, in that day atleast, was regarded as honor. On the morning of the final day he said toyoung Langdon:

"Charley, my week is up, and I must go home."

The young man expressed a regret which was genuine enough, though notwholly unqualified. His older sister, Mrs. Crane, leaving just then fora trip to the White Mountains, had said:

"Charley, I am sure Mr. Clemens is after our Livy. You mustn't let himcarry her off before our return."

The idea was a disturbing one. The young man did not urge his guest toprolong his-visit. He said:

"We'll have to stand it, I guess, but you mustn't leave before to-night."

The young man was now very genuinely alarmed. To him Mark Twain was ahighly gifted, fearless, robust man--a man's man--and as such altogetheradmirable--lovable. But Olivia--Livy--she was to him little short of asaint. No man was good enough for her, certainly not this adventuroussoldier of letters from the West. Delightful he was beyond doubt,adorable as a companion, but not a companion for Livy.

"Look here, Clemens," he said, when he could get his voice. "There's atrain in half an hour. I'll help you catch it. Don't wait till to-night. Go now."

Clemens shook his head.

"No, Charley," he said, in his gentle drawl, "I want to enjoy yourhospitality a little longer. I promise to be circumspect, and I'll goto-night."

That night, after dinner, when it was time to take the New York train, alight two-seated wagon was at the gate. The coachman was in front, andyoung Langdon and his guest took the back seat. For some reason the seathad not been locked in its place, and when, after the good-bys, thecoachman touched the horse it made a quick spring forward, and the backseat, with both passengers, described a half-circle and came down withforce on the cobbled street. Neither passenger was seriously hurt;Clemens not at all--only dazed a little for a moment. Then came aninspiration; here was a chance to prolong his visit. Evidently it wasnot intended that he should take that train. When the Langdon householdgathered around with restoratives he did not recover too quickly. Heallowed them to support or carry him into the house and place him in anarm-chair and apply remedies. The young daughter of the house especiallyshowed anxiety and attention. This was pure happiness. He was perjuringhimself, of course, but they say Jove laughs at such things.

He recovered in a day or two, but the wide hospitality of the handsomeLangdon home was not only offered now; it was enforced. He was stillthere two weeks later, after which he made a trip to Cleveland to confidein Mrs. Fairbanks how he intended to win Livy Langdon for his wife.

LXVIII

THE REV. "JOE" TWICHELL

He returned to Hartford to look after the progress of his book. Some ofit was being put into type, and with his mechanical knowledge of suchthings he was naturally interested in the process.

He made his headquarters with the Blisses, then living at 821 AsylumAvenue, and read proof in a little upper room, where the lamp was likelyto be burning most of the time, where the atmosphere was nearly alwaysblue with smoke, and the window-sill full of cigar butts. Mrs. Blisstook him into the quiet social life of the neighborhood--to small churchreceptions, society gatherings and the like--all of which he seemed toenjoy. Most of the dwellers in that neighborhood were members of theAsylum Hill Congregational Church, then recently completed; all but thespire. It was a cultured circle, well-off in the world's goods, its malemembers, for the most part, concerned in various commercial ventures.

The church stood almost across the way from the Bliss home, and MarkTwain, with his picturesque phrasing, referred to it as the "stub-tailedchurch," on account of its abbreviated spire; also, later, with aknowledge of its prosperous membership, as the "Church of the HolySpeculators." He was at an evening reception in the home of one of itsmembers when he noticed a photograph of the unfinished building framedand hanging on the wall.

"Why, yes," he commented, in his slow fashion, "this is the 'Church ofthe Holy Speculators.'"

"Sh," cautioned Mrs. Bliss. "Its pastor is just behind you. He knowsyour work and wants to meet you." Turning, she said: "Mr. Twichell, thisis Mr. Clemens. Most people know him as Mark Twain."

And so, in this casual fashion, he met the man who was presently tobecome his closest personal friend and counselor, and would remain so formore than forty years.

Joseph Hopkins Twichell was a man about his own age, athletic andhandsome, a student and a devout Christian, yet a man familiar with theworld, fond of sports, with an exuberant sense of humor and a wideunderstanding of the frailties of humankind. He had been "port waistoar" at Yale, and had left college to serve with General "Dan" Sickles asa chaplain who had followed his duties not only in the camp, but on thefield.

Mention has already been made of Mark Twain's natural leaning towardministers of the gospel, and the explanation of it is easier to realizethan to convey. He was hopelessly unorthodox--rankly rebellious as tocreeds. Anything resembling cant or the curtailment of mental libertyroused only his resentment and irony. Yet something in his heart alwayswarmed toward any laborer in the vineyard, and if we could put theexplanation into a single sentence, perhaps we might say it was becausehe could meet them on that wide, common ground sympathy with mankind.Mark Twain's creed, then and always, may be put into three words,"liberty, justice, humanity." It may be put into one word, "humanity."

Ministers always loved Mark Twain. They did not always approve of him,